John Dixon (ca. 1740–1811)  

• Was an Irish mezzotint engraver.
• Dublin-born Dixon trained at the drawing school of the Dublin Society.
• His father was Thomas Dixon, a hosier, of Cork Hill.
• His brother Samuel Dixon, was a watercolourist and printmaker.
• Dixon began life as an engraver of silver plate.
• In 1760 he engraved a map of County Dublin produced by the British surveyor and cartographer John Rocque.
• He moved to London about 1765, and in the following year became a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, with whom he exhibited until 1775.
• He was a director in 1770-71, and again from 1772 to 1775.
• Most of Dixon's early plates were published by William Wynne Ryland.
• In 1775, Dixon married wealthy widow, Ann Kempe, after which he ceased working and lived a life of leisure.
• Dixon was, in politics, a follower of John Wilkes, and some of his portraits are of other Wilkites.

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